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David Crawford reports on energy cost cutting on US highways. Just over a year after switch-on and with two global awards under its belt, the longest solar-powered toll road in the US is generating heightened interest in highway applications of alternative energy. The E-407, which loops around the eastern perimeter of the Denver metropolitan area in Colorado, won the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) President’s Overall Award for Excellence at its September 2013 Annual Meeting in

Test story about nothing

Eurotunnel and the British mobile telephone operators EE and Vodafone have signed a ten year agreement to offer mobile services in the Channel Tunnel. Customers of both operators will have access to 2G and 3G services in the UK to France north tunnel (UK to France). Both EE and Vodafone intend to offer 4G data services throughout the tunnel in the future. This will enable passengers of both Le Shuttle and high speed passenger trains to use their mobile phone or tablet device at any point of the journe

Former US Secretary of Transportation is to join Building America’s Future (BAF) as a new co-chair. Serving alongside fellow co-chairs former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell the LaHood will help lead BAF’s bipartisan coalition of current and former elected officials who are committed to raising awareness about the need to invest in our nation’s roads, bridges, airports, rails and ports. Together, the BAF co-chairs called on Washington to support critica

Auto manufacturer Audi has partnered with TTech, Austrian network solutions provider, to introduce key-enabling technologies for the piloted car, which the companies say will result in a highly integrated platform ECU named zFAS, which is based on a complex multicore network, hosting sophisticated sensor fusion and a variety of innovative functions such as piloted parking or driving. "Our goal is leadership in piloted parking and piloted driving. For this purpose TTTech and Audi are developing a highly a

There is just a week left before the 15 January deadline for submission of scientific or technical papers for the 21st World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems and ITS America Annual Meeting, to be held on 7-11 September in Detroit, Michigan. Approved paper submissions will be presented in Detroit and automatically be considered for publication in one of three noted ITS journals, namely: The Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, IET Intelligent Transport Systems, or the International Jour

French engineering and construction firm Egis has been awarded a US$16 million engineering contract by Brazil’s build and operate concessionaire CCR (Companhia de Concessões Rodoviárias) for the construction of the Salvador metro in the state capital of Bahia, Brazil. The project comprises the completion of the seven kilometre line 1, which is partly underground, the construction of five kilometres of extensions to this first line and the construction of the 24 kilometre line 2, serving Salvador’s inter

Audio and infotainment group Harman is to demonstrate its integration of Google Glass with its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) engine at the One Harman experience showcase at during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas 7-10 January. Demonstrations will show Google Glass can be seamlessly integrated with the company’s ADAS engine, using an android camera feed and image processing to analyse in real-time camera the potential road risks provide alerts through the Google Glass. The syst

The deadline for paper and special interest session proposal submissions for the ITS European Congress and Exhibition in Helsinki has been extended to midnight on 14 January. We have already received many valuable submissions and we thank you for your contributions. Papers and special interest session proposals should be submitted through the submission portal, which also provides the submission guidelines. For further details on the congress and exhibition, visit the Congress website.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending US$340 million to finance the implementation of Hungary’s railway infrastructure rehabilitation and upgrading investment programme for the period 2013-2016. The objective is to improve the safety, capacity and performance of the existing conventional railway infrastructure with positive impacts on commuters and long-distance travellers as well as on freight traffic. The EIB loan will help the Hungarian railways to become more competitive and attractive in co

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has installed a new US$750,000 electronic sign system on Interstate 80 in Parleys Canyon that will allow engineers to adjust the speed limit during storms or icy weather. Eight electronic signs are in eastbound lanes, and seven in westbound lanes. Data from road sensors shows the road condition, along with the canyon’s temperature and humidity and traffic speed, while cameras will show visibility, enabling traffic engineers to remotely adjust the speed limit s

TRICS, the UK and Ireland’s national system of trip generation analysis, is introducing the TRICS 7 series to user organisations at a free event to be held at The Grand Connaught Rooms in London on 14 January. TRICS 7 is a comprehensive redesign of the TRICS user interface, with efficiency, user-friendliness, logic and structure in mind. It is the result of two years of research, consultation and development and is a major upgrade from the previous TRICS 6 series. An improved logical interface reduce

Australia’s Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) has awarded Q-Free an order for its OBU610 tags valued at US$2.4 million. This latest generation toll transponder is claimed by the company to be the smallest of its kind, yet powerful enough to support both single and multiple protocol applications. With a battery life of more than seven years, the transponder supports any application from single lane to full multi-lane free-flow and open-road tolling.

Michael Marsico, Andrew Weeks, Keir Opie and Murat Ayçin explain the application of hybrid traffic simulation to a planning study in New York City. Traffic modelling, particularly mesoscopic-microscopic hybrid simulation, has played a key role in planning for the future of one of America's shortest interstates, the 1.3-mile Sheridan Expressway. New York City has just completed a two-year, interagency study federally funded by a TIGER II grant on how to improve the Sheridan Expressway and its surroundi

RedFusion, RedSpeed’s average speed enforcement system, won a number of converts in 2013 – particularly in the UK where the technology has been type approved for both permanent and temporary installations.

With an estimated 15 million stop arm violations in America every year, RedSpeed is offering school bus operators an automated photo enforcement system free of charge.

With an estimated 15 million stop arm violations in America every year, RedSpeed is offering school bus operators an automated photo enforcement system free of charge.

In its latest study, “Emerging Technologies: Autonomous cars—not if, but when,”, IHS Automotive forecasts total worldwide sales of self-driving cars (SDC) will grow from nearly 230 thousand in 2025 to 11.8 million in 2035 – seven million SDCs with both driver control and autonomous control and 4.8 million that have only autonomous control. In all, there should be nearly 54 million self-driving cars in use globally by 2035. The study anticipates that nearly all of the vehicles in use are likely to be self

In a bid to make the city congestion free by 2030, the Jakarta administration has pledged to make public transport the most used form of transportation in the city, and has allocated US$423 million in 2014 to develop the transportation system. Plans include seven transit-oriented developments (TOD) across the capital region, a total of 38 bus corridors and 17 park-and-ride centres, all of which will be integrated into a city-wide public transport grid. The park and ride centres will enable motorcyclists

Russia’s Ministry of Transport says that US$54.56 billion will be invested in development of the Moscow Transport Hub in 2013-2016. The funding will be used to develop roads, subways, rail infrastructure, public transport, air transport, road traffic management, road traffic safety and water transport development. The program stipulates launch of passenger rail service at the Moscow Little Ring Railway, construction of 93.9 kilometres of roads and 38.6 kilometres of street and road network. The infrastru